The Evilest Superman Has Finally Redeemed Himself | Screen Rant
Warning: contains spoilers for Dark Nights: Death Metal The Secret Origin
Redemption has always remained elusive for super-villains, but it becomes a lot more complicated when they started out as heroes. For Superboy-Prime redemption seemed almost impossible. Not only had he committed terrible atrocities, but more damningly, fans just didn't like the character. Comic books are a unique medium though, where character arcs regularly span multiple decades and that may have given the villain of Infinite Crisis more than enough time to grow. In Dark Nights: Death Metal The Secret Origin, Superboy-Prime finally redeems himself and becomes the hero he always wanted to be
Following on from events in the main Death Metal series, the new comic from writers Geoff Johns and Scott Snyder sees Superboy-Prime finally meeting the entire Superman family just before a big battle. Though the house of steel is trepidatious about trusting the villain, Wonder Woman's belief in Superboy-Prime holds them back from outright attacking him. The one member who has no reservations about Prime though is Superman's dog, Krypto. Conner Kent immediately comes forward to protect his dog. As Superboy-Prime insists that a super-powered dog with a cape is a ridiculous concept, the battle everyone has been waiting for arrives. Dark alternate universes stream across the sky, bringing with them an army of evil Supermen.
While the Superman family does battle with their dark counterparts, Prime attempts to fly away from the Batman Who Laughs' horde. He easily defeats a dark Superman, but then one of the alternate universes catches his eye. He sees a universe where heroes are good and pure, where long-dead heroes are alive, where he is the Earth's greatest Champion. Not understanding what he's seeing, Prime attacks the Batman Who Laughs but stops when the darkest Batman makes an offer. In exchange for joining forces, Superboy-Prime will be given the world he saw. After almost forty years of having his world gone, this Clark Kent could finally have a home. But then Krypto comes to the rescue, and the villainous Superboy is reminded of the little good left in his heart. With sadness, he realizes how hollow the Batman Who Laughs' offer is. It can't bring back all the people he lost on his Earth. With a single punch, Superboy-Prime weakens the Batman Who Laughs, but the attack ends up costing him his life. As he lays dying, readers see him back on his Earth as a teenager, reading the comic he's in.
It's left deliberately unclear whether Superboy-Prime is just hallucinating this afterlife, or whether he was legitimately transported there, leaving the character open to appearing in future DC stories. Regardless of the reality of this afterlife though, the moment is incredibly strong. Too often, redemptions come out of nowhere or are completely out of character, but this feels entirely in line with everything readers know about Superboy-Prime. He's still whiny, still longing for a world of better heroes, but with Krypto's help can finally see how hollow his desire is and always was. Since Superboy-Prime's turn to evil, he's been wanting to make a better world, but this comic shows that what he really wanted was a world with his friends and family back.
Superboy-Prime has long been a sore spot for comic book fans who felt the character was an unfavorable caricature of people who wanted DC to return to a simpler era. It's a compliment to Johns and Snyder that they managed to keep this essential element of him while ultimately redeeming him. Readers will undoubtedly have different interpretations about what this is attempting to say about comic fans. Regardless though, Superboy-Prime in Dark Nights: Death Metal proves why Superman is a role model, his ethos that no one is beyond redemption.